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AR in your Hand
For now, the majority of AR you'll likely find in the real world centers on apps for your smartphone. Here's a look at a few, plus the toys and even vehicles embracing AR to augment your future.

Perhaps the most movie-esque way to experience augmented reality today is via your handheld. Any device with a camera in the back has the option, including the Apple iPhone, most Android models, and even the brand new Sony PlayStation Vita (which is like a PS Portable but with cameras). According to business information provider Visiongain, in the next five years, mobile AR will "expand exponentially." This will likely happen when a killer AR app or two break out this year or next. Expect companies to pay billions for development and for mobile AR apps to make up a significant portion of all app downloads.

What you can do today AR-wise depends on the app involved, but here are a few applications that stand out:

 Layar: Using its "AR browser," Layar and partners are making an entire platform for creating augmented reality apps, adding layers of data that correspond to what the app sees via the camera. The extra Layar Vision provides an opportunity for content providers to offer more than just a few data points. When magazines, TV shows, trade shows, or the like partner with Layar, anything you point a camera phone at could offer extra AR content.

 Pocket Universe: This $2.99 app for the iPhone or iPad looks at the sky and, based on the GPS settings, compass, and what the camera sees, will identify the stars and constellations. Then, it superimposes all the data you can hope for on top of the image.

 Theodolite: A real-world theodolite measures horizontal and vertical plane angles for surveyors. This app for the iPhone does the same, giving you all the topographical data you can stomach for free. (You can also pay $3.99 for Pro version that does much more.) Other developers make similar theodolite tools for other phones.

 Google Goggles: This isn't the hardware we hope to see someday, but an actual part of the Google Search app found on iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry. Start it up, take a picture of something, and, hopefully, you will be flooded with information about the subject thanks to Google. It's imperfect, but free.

 Wikitude World Browser: Like Google Goggles, the Wikitude app will deliver as many quick facts as it can about your surroundings from social networks, encyclopedias, and whatever else it can access. It's free on all the major smartphone platforms.

 Starbucks Cup Magic: We mentioned before that corporations want to use AR for marketing, and this is a perfect example. The free app for iPhone or Android is used to view a Starbucks cup from about arm's length, and when it recognizes the cup, you get extra AR effects (like hearts shooting out on Valentine's Day). The fact that you can then use the app to send eGift Cards to your loved ones is no coincidence, I assure you.

AR for Play Time
Toys are a big in-road for augmented reality. A new generation will soon expect that digital data overlay when they look at any screen.

But that's not entirely what toy AR is about. Like we mentioned above with Skylanders, sometimes it's enough to combine any real-world object (like a figure) with the digital to be labeled as "augmented reality" by the toy industry.

This year's Toy Fair was, in fact, full of AR from the big toymakers. Hasbro will release editions of many popular board games under the "zAPPed" moniker, which, as the capitalization implies, means an accompanying mobile app. Even Lazer Tag will get a gun with an iPhone/iPod touch mount; Spin Master's new AppToyz line also builds the iPhone into a gun, racing wheel, and fishing rod controller. (Read "Augmented Reality, iPhones, and the Future of Toys" for more details.)

WowWee, maker of the Robosapien, is also embracing AR heavily, with a line called AppGear. An Elite Commander AR puts your iPhone on a gun as well, but for a first-person shooter game against both digital and real-world "enemies." There are also a couple of Skylander-esque games where figurines will be offered. One features aliens, another cute zombie kids, and the Akodomon creatures are practically the Tamogachi of this millennium.

Even paper isn't immune to the AR treatment. Popar Toys will release actual dead-tree books that are embedded with codes, so that when read by a webcam, the computer screen will come to life with 3D animated extras. Titles include Planets 3D, Bugs 3D, Construction Machine 3D, and more. Each will cost about $28; a $40 starter kit comes with a webcam with a flexible neck needed to point at a page.

So, what's out there right now to get your kids AR happy, besides the Skylanders collection? Here are a few choices:

 Parrot AR.Drone Quadricopter is a four-propeller remote controlled helicopter. What makes it AR is the fact that the controller is your smartphone (iOS or Android) and you can see what the camera on the front of the AR.Drone sees. App downloads add a game overlay to the view, turning it into a single- or multi-player game.

 Lego's Life of George set works with iOS devices. It's not a visual overlay, but instead, an app gives you directions and times you when building things with the 144 pieces available.

 Suwappu are little figuresblocky things that almost look like they came from the 70s. However, inside they have memory and when viewed through a smartphone, they'll interact in some amazingly animated ways, even if they don't move. They're from the UK and are not quite on sale yet.

 Moverio from Epson are seriously high-end goggles. They'll make anyone wearing them think they're watching an 80-inch 3D-capable HDTV display from about 16 feet away. It's AR because you can see through the "screen" and not lose your place in the real-world, so AR apps are natural. U.S. customers can buy them at GizMine.com for about $950.

Eric narrowly averted a career in food service when he began in tech publishing at Ziff-Davis over 20 years ago. He was on the founding staff of Windows Sources, FamilyPC, and Access Internet Magazine (all defunct, and it's not his fault). He's the author of two novels, BETA TEST ("an unusually lighthearted apocalyptic tale"--Publishers' Weekly) and KALI: THE GHOSTING OF SEPULCHER BAY. He works from his home in Ithaca, NY.
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